Jacqueline Du Pre - ever seen a good one?

10 years ago

I was warned that this rose was a duffer but naturally, ignored advice. What's more, because I so wanted this rose to do well - local breeder, specially selected by Mr.Camp (and being obstinate and mutinous), I ignored the evidence of my eyes for several years. However, it sits in the same bed as my other main rubbish rose, Phillippa, and the twin horror of their naked skanky canes dictates harsh actions....unless someone can persuade me that there is hope. While I will go the extra mile for a plant sufficiently desirable or needy, I have found that some of them are just innately hopeless and no loving attention, food, water or even (gasp) spraying can overcome the essential rubbishness of such plants.....and I am beginning to suspect the JdP is such a fail. So.....is yours a shy bloomer, fragile, requiring the merest raindrop to collapse feebly, limp petalled, graceless in death, defoliated, tall and gangly with severe die-back issues (true, there are a few ethereally lovely blooms for 5 minutes in mid-June but......)?

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Rochella Farnand

10 months ago

I believe I have this rose-zone 8b. I pruned it hard the first couple years now lightly. Looks amazing. So it can be done!

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Comments (10)

roseseek
10 years ago
I've seen wonderful FLOWERS of it, but never a decent plant....anywhere, which is why it has never followed me home. I love the blooms and scent, but have never been able to get past the plant they are carried by. I agree with your predisposition to WANT to love it, being a Harkness rose. Perhaps they saw something in it I never have? Kim
ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9
10 years ago
Yes, I have seen a good one. In fact, it was gorgeous. It was in a huge pot in a local nursery, covered with leaves and flowers. This was about two years ago and I have no idea what its ultimate destiny was, but it was already a mature, large plant in that pot, and of course I have no idea how they achieved that. Perhaps living in San Diego County was the secret to its success? Who knows?

Ingrid
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jerijen
10 years ago
I agree with Kim. (And mine, in the end, died.)

Jeri
nastarana
10 years ago
Mine was as miserable a specimen as I have seen. One rose I did not regret when it died.
anntn6b
10 years ago
In the RBG garden in Burlington Ontario, IIRC there was a good plant growing under some very large pine (?) trees. I only saw it in bloom there one spring (their spring which was probably June) and the blooms were lovely. Other times we visited that garden either it wasn't there or I just didn't notice it.

Has anyone else seen the mini Grace Seward? A friend in NC in a zone 5-6 situation grew it against a grey out building and it had the look that I had hoped to see with JDP.
michaelg
10 years ago
I wanted this one too--beautiful pictures, beautiful name--but I was lucky enough to see it in the flesh (?) before I wasted the money/time/space.
fig_insanity Z7b E TN
10 years ago
Camp,

A friend in Texas had an absolutely gorgeous one, for about four years. I saw it at its peak performance, over 4'x5', thick, healthy, absolutely covered in bloom the Spring of 2009. Stunning (and I hate that word). I was back to visit this year, and it was GONE. In three years it had grown backward and failed to sprout this year. Of course they've had horrible drought, and record heat; but he irrigates and out of 100 roses, this and two others are all he's lost. It's a prima donna, evidently.

John
Rosylady (PNW zone 8)
10 months ago
Oh my goodness Rochella!! I planted a small one last year and it is not a lusty specimen to say the least. I hope I can get it to thrive like yours! Hope springs eternal :)
rosecanadian
10 months ago
My skanky, runty rose is Pope John Paul II. This is its last year.

Rochella - that fabulous picture made me fall in love with this rose...I need it!! lol :) :) Since it would be as runty as my PJPII...I'm glad I won't be able to find it here.